Door
Several doors have been significant to fandom.
Besides the John Van Couvering and Midwestcon Incidents mentioned in Fancy 2, below, there was the Door Down Under:
The most unusual candidate ever to be nominated for DUFF was the Rogers Street Laundry Door — the laundry door of a Melbourne slanshack inhabited by Mark Loney (then an editor of Thyme), Julian Warner and Michelle Muijsert at 3 Rogers Street. There was a write-in campaign in support of the Door for the 1988 DUFF Race in which the human candidates were Terry Dowling and Cathy Kerrigan. The Door was ruled ineligible.
Most fans wrote it off as just a gag — but others suggested more sinister motives. Jean Weber wrote in WeberWoman's Wrevenge 30 (June 1988):
Thyme published first a flyer and ballot for the Door for DUFF campaign, in the next issue a page of photographs taken from one issue of a series of magazines titled Sarah Foster Tate in Bondage.... For those who haven’t seen the photographs, or don’t recognize the person in them, she is Kerrie Hanlon, a well known Australian fan artist ... and a close friend (significant other?) of Terry Dowling, this year’s DUFF winner. Everyone assumes Terry Dowling was the photographer. The published objections appear to assume that the publication of the photographs was part of a campaign against Terry.
| From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959 |
| The most famous ones in fandom were wrecked by John Van Couvering and Jim Harmon. VanC walked thru the glass door of the Downey (Cal.) public library one day in 1950, winning fannish notoriety and a mention in the local paper. Jim Harmon was waterbagged by Harlan Ellison at the Midwestcon in 1954, swarmed up to Ellison's room demanding entrance, and, when Ellison rolled a firecracker under the door, slammed his fist thru the panel in the best Col. Renwick tradition. The hotel manager threatened arrest, but a collection from the pros was made to pay for it. ($35). |
On the Harmon/Ellison waterbagging, see Midwestcon Incident for another (less interesting, alas!), pro-Harlan version of the story.
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